


S.T.A.R.K., or Scientific and Tactical Assistance for Radioactive Kid (but he prefers to go by Tony)

by persephoneggsy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ... sort of, AI Tony Stark, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Written Before Spider-Man: Far From Home, iron dad and spider-son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 21:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephoneggsy/pseuds/persephoneggsy
Summary: So he lays out his suit on his bed, hooks it up to his laptop, and plugs in the USB, half-anxious to see what he’s going to find.Immediately, an image pops up on his computer. It’s Tony Stark, grinning at him from inside the screen, peering over the top of his sunglasses. A video, maybe? Though it starts playing automatically, and he can’t see a time slider or pause button anywhere.“Heya, Underoos.”Peter blinks. Then, he starts crying again.





	S.T.A.R.K., or Scientific and Tactical Assistance for Radioactive Kid (but he prefers to go by Tony)

**Author's Note:**

> SO. It's been a hot minute since I've posted anything here, but what can I say? Endgame fucking ended me.
> 
> This came about mostly through me discussing with my dad various ways they could bring Tony back - my personal favorite is them going full comic book and bringing him back as an AI version of himself. RDJ could be the new Paul Bettany when he was just JARVIS lmao

* * *

 

Peter thinks he should be used to loss by now.

The first were his parents, but to be honest, that had been so long ago that he doesn’t remember what he’d felt. Then he lost Uncle Ben. And _that_ stung, like a knife slowly twisting in his guts, because he could’ve _done something_ to save him.

But he’d recovered. He moved on. And then he lost Mr. Stark.

He’d _just_ gotten back, from… wherever the Snapped had gone; to him, it felt like minutes, but according to Dr. Strange, it had been five years. No wonder, he’d mused later, Mr. Stark looked so happy to see him.

Peter wishes he’d savored that hug just a little bit more.

The only comfort to him at the time was the knowledge that Mr. Stark had died a hero’s death, saving the universe from Thanos. That comfort was quickly shattered when he realized that Mr. Stark had a _child_ in the time he was gone, and now Morgan had to grow up without the best father any kid could’ve possibly asked for.

He cries when Morgan recognizes him right away, despite it being the first time he meets her; apparently, her father told her stories.

But even then, Peter had moved on. Mr. Stark wouldn’t have wanted him to wallow in his misery. He was _Spider-Man,_ for god’s sake. Spider-Man wasn’t cut out for brooding on top of tall buildings. So he worked through his grief and went back to protecting his neighborhood, trying to make up for five years’ worth of lost time.

He doesn’t wear the Iron Spider suit anymore. It has too many bad memories. Miss Pepper – Mrs. Stark? – seemed to understand when he returned it to her.

He was doing really well, regardless. Mr. Stark’s absence slowly became less of a gaping hole and more like an aching limb – a pain that would never really go away, but became more and more bearable with time.

Then he has to go and lose Karen, too.

His faithful AI, who always had words of encouragement and advice whenever he needed, someone he wasn’t ashamed to admit was a _friend,_ available to him when Aunt May and Ned weren’t, was just… gone. A tech-powered villain had managed to hack the suit, and Karen, in an effort to stop him from taking over, had destroyed herself in the process.

Honestly, Peter doesn’t even remember how he took down the bad guy. He just remembers coming home, ignoring his aunt’s worried looks, and locking himself in his bedroom. He’d cried himself to sleep for the first time in months – since losing Mr. Stark.

He doesn’t tell Miss Pepper, or Happy. He figures it doesn’t matter much to them. Karen was _his_ creation, after all. It’s not like they could build him a replacement. And, really, he doesn’t want a Karen 2.0; it just wouldn’t be the same. He’d taken her ‘death’ as hard as any of the real people he’d lost before, and to just… get a new Karen felt insulting.

But going out as Spider-Man feels emptier, without her soothing voice in his ear. He probably misses a lot of things that she would’ve pointed out for him. But maybe this is good, he thinks to himself, more than once. Maybe she was the last of his training wheels, and not having her would make him a better hero. Make him think on his feet more.

(He still misses her, though. If only for the conversation.)

About a week after Karen’s demise, though, Peter gets a phone call from Miss Pepper. She wants him to swing by the new-and-improved Avengers Compound.

When he asks why, all she says is that Tony left him one last upgrade.

When he gets there, all she hands him is a small, unmarked USB.

When he asks what it is, she tells him to plug it into his suit; she won’t ruin the surprise beyond that.

 

* * *

 

So that’s what Peter does, but only after he’s gone back home – he likes the Compound, but Mr. Stark is everywhere there. He has a picture on the lobby’s wall, his name is engraved on a plaque outside, and that’s to say nothing of the ten-feet-tall statue of Iron Man standing next to the similar statues of Black Widow and Vision.

He may be healing, but there’s a reason he declined the offer to join the Avengers. At least for now.

So he lays out his suit on his bed, hooks it up to his laptop, and plugs in the USB, half-anxious to see what he’s going to find.

Immediately, an image pops up on his computer. It’s Tony Stark, grinning at him from inside the screen, peering over the top of his sunglasses. A video, maybe? Though it starts playing automatically, and he can’t see a time slider or pause button anywhere.

_“Heya, Underoos.”_

Peter blinks. Then, he starts crying again.

The video pauses, looking startled.

_“Wh- Hey, hey, Spiderling, don’t cry! Ah, fuck, I should’ve thought this through…”_

Peter’s sobs only grow louder, because _holy shit,_ it’s like he’s in the room with him. He hadn’t realized just how much he missed Mr. Stark’s weird pet names.

_“Seriously, Pete, quit crying. You’re gonna break Happy’s record if you keep this up.”_

Wow, Mr. Stark really anticipated what he was going to do, huh?

Realization dawns on Video Mr. Stark’s face, not that Peter can see it through his blurred vision.

_“Oh, you – you think this is a video, don’t you?”_

Abruptly, Peter’s sobbing halts, though tears are still streaming down his face. He hastily wipes at them to get a clearer view of the screen. Video Mr. Stark is staring back, eyebrow raised expectantly, like he used to do all the time when he wanted Peter to answer back to whatever question he just asked.

Silence reigns on for a few moments more, until Peter says, hesitantly.

“… Isn’t it?”

_“Nope,”_ the computer image replies, popping the ‘p’. _“Sorry, probably should’ve had Pep preface this with an introduction, but you know me, I wanted to be all dramatic. Didn’t think you’d cry, though. I’m flattered.”_

He jumps when Peter lurches forward, grabbing his laptop’s screen and pressing his face into the screen.

“But – how?!”

_“Easy there, Petey-pie. Back up before you ruin your eyes.”_

Mouth still agape, Peter does that.

Computer Mr. Stark nods in approval, then continues. _“Alright, so, a summary: I died.”_

Peter flinches. “I know that… I was there.”

To his satisfaction, Computer Mr. Stark flinches too.

_“Ah, yeah… Sorry. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have had to see that, kid. But, uh, anyway… A little bit before I died, before me and the old gang did our whole ‘Time Heist’ thing, I had a last-minute idea. Scanned my brain and stored the data on a hidden file tucked deep into my private servers. I asked FRIDAY to do what she could with it while I was, well, out, and it turns out, voila! She did.”_

He holds open his arms, as if presenting the idea itself. Peter’s brow furrows, the cogs turning in his head, before it suddenly comes to him.

“Wait, so you’re – you’re an _artificial intelligence_ now?!”

_“More or less. Not artificial, technically speaking. I’ve mostly been keeping this little miracle of science between me, Pep, Rhodey, and Happy. And now you.”_

Pride wells up in Peter’s chest, before it falls, as something else dawns on him.

“Wait, not – not Morgan?”

Computer Mr. Stark’s smile turns wry. _“We’re all debating when the best time to tell her is. She might not understand that me being ‘here’ isn’t the same as me being, you know,_ there _.”_

“Oh… Okay…” Peter can understand that. Still, he hopes they tell her soon. Morgan deserves that much. “Wait, so, why are you telling me now? What about the others – the Avengers?”

_“Eeeh.”_ Computer Mr. Stark waves his hand. _“We’ll let them know, eventually. I wanted a little privacy first. Cap gets seventy whole goddamn years to himself, or so Rhodey tells me, let me have a few months, right?”_

At this, Peter frowns. “Mr. Stark, not sound rude, but… We all mourned you. We thought you were gone. For good. This is… a little cruel.”

Computer Mr. Stark – ah hell, he might as well just accept it and drop the ‘computer’ bit – has the decency to look chastised.

_“I know. And I am sorry. We just didn’t know for sure if this was gonna work out, or if my brain patterns were going to destabilize and you’d lose me all over again. Honestly, we still haven’t worked out all the kinks – I definitely can’t fly an Iron Man suit like this, at least not yet – but then I heard about Karen, and, well…”_

“You heard about Karen?” Peter’s frown deepens. “How?”

Mr. Stark shrugs. _“She was linked to FRIDAY’s systems, as a way of keeping an eye on her. FRIDAY alerted me when she went down. I’m sorry about that, too, by the way.”_

A sadness falls over Mr. Stark’s face. It’s too _real_ to be just a computer program, thinks Peter.

He swallows thickly and glances down at the keyboard. “Thanks. It was… Is it weird that she was my friend?”

_“Not at all. JARVIS, my first AI, was my best friend for years. Drove Rhodey mad with jealousy,”_ Mr. Stark winked, though it lacked its usual humor. _“Losing him was like – !”_

“ – Like losing a limb,” finishes Peter.

Mr. Stark gives him a half-smile. _“… Yeah. Anyway, after I heard about that, I figured, hell. You might as well find out now. Given my primary function and all.”_

“Primary… function?”

_“Protect my family, and the Avengers,”_ he clarifies. Then, with a pointed look, he adds, _“You're both.”_

Peter grins shyly. That sentiment alone nearly makes his heart burst.

“So you’re like… FRIDAY, but for… everyone?”

_“Everyone that’ll want it. Including you.”_ Mr. Stark tilts his head. _“What do you say, kid?”_

Not once, during this whole exchange, have Peter’s eyes dried completely. Now, the unshed tears he’d managed to blink away before are back to spilling over his cheeks.

But this time, he’s smiling.

“Of course!”

 

* * *

 

_“Ugh. The green and purple thing really only works for Bruce.”_

Peter grunts an acknowledgement, narrowly avoiding one of the Green Goblin’s flying projectiles. “The mask is sufficiently creepy, though.”

Mr. Stark hums. _“Agreed. He’s closing in on your right.”_

Peter’s hand flies out, shooting a web to the closest lamppost and swinging out of harm’s way.

_“Nice job, kid. Now, which web combo would be best for that pesky little glider of his?”_

As he swings further out of range, Peter thinks. “243? Thicker, to help gum up the engines?”

_“You asking, or are you gonna do it?”_

Peter rolls his eyes. Three months in, and Mr. Stark’s never once given him an affirmative answer. Which, he supposes, is better for him in the long run.

Still annoying, though.

He turns around and shoots out web combination 243, aiming for the thrusters on Goblin’s glider. He hits it square-on, his grin widening behind his mask as the green villain abruptly drops from the sky.

_“Hammock maneuver?”_

Peter nods, despite not really needing to, and spins a hammock of webs just below Green Goblin to catch him. They do, with the added bonus of sticking to him, so now he’s suspended twenty feet above the sidewalk, laid out like a fly, helpless. He’s yelling like a lunatic at Spider-Man, who at that point sees the SHIELD cars approaching to take Goblin into custody.

_“Great work, Charlotte.”_

He rolls his eyes again, this time at the nickname. Still, he grows warm with pride at Mr. Stark’s praise. He doesn’t think that will ever stop.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

_“Now, if SHIELD could just stop letting the man break out of prison every two weeks… Ah. Sorry squirt, Falcon’s calling me in. Sounds like a nasty terrorist cell in southern Sokovia. Needs my full attention. You good?”_

“Yeah, I’m good.”

_“Cool. Don’t forget, your Spanish final is next week.”_

Peter huffs. “Sí, Señor Stark.”

_“You promised to help MJ study,”_ the AI’s voice takes on a teasing tone.

Freezing for a moment, Peter soon ducks down into an alleyway, crouching behind a dumpster.

“Don’t you have terrorists to stop, Mr. Stark?”

_“I’ll know if you chicken out, Pete!”_

“Bye, Mr. Stark!”

Peter rips off his mask, face burning, with the sounds of Mr. Stark’s laughter fading in his ears.

 

* * *

 

Peter blinks at the new name projected onto one of the Avengers Compound’s many monitors.

“What is this?” he directs his gaze to Mr. Stark, who’s hologram is lounging lazily on top of the conference table.

Mr. Stark glance his way, then gives a dismissive wave.

_“Oh, thought of a fun new name for myself. It’s a kick, right?”_

“I thought you called me here to look at new web shooter specs.”

_“Well, that too.”_ With another wave, one of the monitors flickers to life and brings up the aforementioned specs. Peter goes to examine them, his mind already buzzing with suggestions, but Mr. Stark isn’t finished. _“I just thought it’d be fun to give myself an acronym. All the cool AIs have ‘em.”_

“You’ve been an AI for almost a year, Mr. Stark.”

_“And that whole time, I felt like something was missing. You like it? Harley helped me come up with it.”_

“Of course he did,” murmurs Peter. “FRIDAY isn’t even an acronym. You told me so, it means ‘girl Friday’. Like a secretary.”

_“Actually, it’s Futurists' Robotic Instrument of Defense And Yeoman,”_ Mr. Stark says quickly.

“You totally just made that up. Seriously, ’Yeoman’?”

_“Slander. It’s the name she was born with and she’ll thank you not to make fun of her.”_

Peter looks at the hologram, then up at the ceiling. “FRIDAY, when did he come up with that?”

_“An hour ago, Mr. Parker,”_ comes the Irish-lilted response.

Mr. Stark groans. _“FRI! What about AI solidarity?”_

If FRIDAY could shrug, Peter imagines she would’ve done so. _“You ordered me never to lie to Mr. Parker, Boss.”_

_“Ugh.”_

Peter smiles fondly, turning back to the main monitor.

‘ **S.T.A.R.K.** ’ is in large, bold font in front of him. And, just below it, a series of words.

‘ **Scientific and Tactical Assistance for Radioactive Kid’**

He shakes his head with a sigh. “I’m not even radioactive.”

_“We’re all a little radioactive,”_ counters Mr. Stark.

Peter opens his mouth to retort, when Mr. Stark suddenly sits up, face serious. He holds up a hand, signaling for Peter to be quiet while he listens to whatever it is only an AI can listen to. Finally, he looks back at Peter.

_“New web-shooters will have to wait. Rhino’s robbing a bank.”_

Peter straightens his back, running for his suit, tucked into his backpack on the conference table next to Mr. Stark.

“On my way!”

_“I’ll be with you in a second,”_ says Mr. Stark. _“Gonna check on Morgan’s piano lesson real quick.”_

He’s already halfway into the suit, and he nods. “Got it. Let me know how she’s doing?”

Mr. Stark gives a little salute, and watches as Peter launches himself out the window. Then, not seconds later, Peter hears this.

_“Go get ‘im, Radioactive Kid.”_

He resists the urge to groan.

“Tell Harley I hate him.”

_“Tell him yourself, Radioactive Kid.”_

Peter _does_ groan out loud that time, earning a laugh from Mr. Stark. After a pause, he gives a little laugh of his own, as he swings out towards the city.

Despite the teasing and, at times, overbearing parental-ness of having your former mentor as a disembodied AI – and isn’t _that_ a wonder of sentence all on its own – Peter knows what the alternative is.

And, honestly?

He wouldn’t trade this for anything.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just as an aside, as sad as I am about Tony, I think it's honestly the best ending his character could've gotten, narratively speaking. Like yeah, it sucks that he had a kid and had to leave her and Pepper behind, but the way the MCU came full circle with him was just *clenches fist* everything.
> 
> Still wanted more Iron Dad and Spider-Son lol


End file.
